Chuck Vs Charles Carmichael
by Tissaia de Vries
Summary: Charles Carmichael was just an alias Chuck adopted to protect his real identity in the spy world, but what if he *became* Charles Carmichael? Season 3 AU, possibly.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Chuck_, rumours that claim I do are fat lies.

**Author's Note:** This is my first fic in _Chuck_'s universe. Unfortunately English isn't my native language and I don't have a beta. The story is readable, but obviously not perfect, so if somebody encounters a grammatical error that is so big that can blind, please, tell me.

Reviews are appreciated. I don't know if this story is interesting at all!

* * *

"No."

The word sounded harsh and worn-out, like a cheap motel towel.

She had said it so many times already. Too many. Not that it mattered, because she would say it, again and again, until he understood it.

"I can do it, Sarah."

But for now, he didn't. He still used to look at her full of confidence and determination and _expect_ a positive reply.

"No, you can't, Chuck. You aren't a spy." She stressed the last word, making it as hurtful as a knife.

He glanced aside, biting his lower lip, and passed his weight from one foot to the other. "But, Sarah… If you just—"

"No."

He looked at her this time, straight and grim. "Why not?"

She couldn't believe she had to repeat the same argument again. "You lack the proper training."

He tapped his temple with his index finger several times. "I don't need training."

There it was: The Intersect. The damn computer of Hell that had ruined her life (their lives!) and had pushed Chuck into a whirlpool of constant danger, anxiety and fear. But since the Intersect 2.0 he didn't seem frightened anymore. No, he even seemed quite content; and the new powers had given him a self-confidence he didn't have before, because it had saved him from actual death. The updated Intersect had stained his attitude with a slight cockiness that endangered his existence even more.

Because it was founded in nothing. Just in unreliable flashes coming in the most unpredictable moments. Especially if _she_ was in danger.

"Chuck…" His name tasted bitter and slightly rusted in her mouth. "For the last time, I'm not letting you take part in a mission when we aren't sure how the Intersect works."

Chuck pursed his lips and Sarah had a fleeting (but very disturbing) desire to kiss and nibble them. Then he took one of the chairs in the Castle and sat down, putting his feet on the table. The tip of his right sneaker had a fro-yo stain on it. _Obama Guava_, Sarah recognized grimly.

"It's a little late for that anyway, don't you think? They're already expecting Charles Carmichael." He intoned the name with a vaguely Scottish drawl.

Sarah closed her eyes. _Please, give me strength. Please, don't let me lose my patience and kick his sorry ass._ "Chuck, for the lat time, n—"

"You're still quarrelling?" Casey asked, entering into the meeting room with a bag on one shoulder and a couple of shotguns in the other hand.

"Sarah doesn't let me go with you," Chuck said with the same petulant tone of a five years old child complaining about his mom.

"Haven't we decided it already?" Casey asked, surprised. "The arms dealers are expecting him."

Chuck threw her a smug smile and Sarah squinted her eyes. Casey wasn't helping in the new situation with the Intersect 2.0, of course. He was very happy to use the asset as a… well, an asset. Sarah felt as the only voice of reason in their freak show.

"It is dangerous," she said out loud. "We don't know how the new Intersect works, or if it'll work this time." Sarah looked at Casey to see how he took her arguments. He seemed unfazed. Sarah began to feel desperate. "Besides, I'm not sure Chuck is 100 percent operative. This morning he was suffering the mother of all migraines."

That was a down side of the updated Intersect: the amount of information was too much, even for a brain like Chuck's, and the poor guy suffered severe headaches, sometimes to the point of incapacitating him and leaving him bedridden all day. Sarah had made a habit of carrying some pills of _Cafergot_ and ibuprofen aside from her usual knifes.

"Ohhhh… Are you ailing, your majesty?" Casey asked Chuck.

"No, I'm fine," he answered, clenching his teeth in a forced smile. "In fact, I haven't been better in a long time."

"Then less talk and more move."

Casey went past Sarah, giving her an exasperated expression, and she was left alone with a satisfied Chuck, all smiles and condescending stares.

Sarah felt torn between her feelings to protect the asset and her needs to slap him, _hard_.

* * *

"Do you know what we have to do?"

"Sarah, as hard as it is for you to believe, this isn't my first mission."

She stopped walking and faced him. He was taller, but — Intersect or not — she had never feared him. Not yet, at least. "Checking out the specs before a mission is standard protocol. It doesn't matter if it's your first or one hundredth time."

Chuck frowned. "What the heck happens with you?"

"_Me?_"

"Yes, you. Since I uploaded the Intersect again you're in a foul mood, to put it lightly" He licked his lips and took one step towards her. "I thought you would be happy."

Happy? What was he talking about? Was he delusional?

"Now I can defend myself and you don't need to worry so much about me. I can be… I can be that guy." He offered her a faint smile.

For a moment Sarah felt like fainting or throwing up, anything would suit her, but then she remembered that she was Sarah Walker, the best spy in the Agency, hard as a diamond and cool as an iceberg. She wasn't going to loose it for a dense nerd, however adorable his smile was or however inciting his hands were.

_Screw you, Chuck. You and your need to be a damn hero._

"What are our orders?" she asked again, ignoring her bleeding heart and Chuck's hurt gaze.

"We meet the dealers in the warehouse and we try to coax who their suppliers are out of them. If we do we try to set another meeting with those suppliers or we convince the dealers to give them a message, if we can't convince them then we arrest them immediately."

Chuck's eyes seemed blanker and blanker as he talked and his face hardened. It happened since he updated the Intersect and it was becoming more frequent as time went by. It was what Sarah called "his Charles Carmichael persona," a second personality inside him that emerged when he needed it to make him act as a spy (according to Chuck), or an arrogant prick (according to Sarah.)

"And what if something goes wrong?" she asked.

"Casey will be monitoring us all the time—"

"_To my chag__rin,"_ the aforementioned quipped through their headphones.

"—so he'd act if we need his help. We also have a safe word, if we say 'white phosphorus grenades' he'll know he must break in."

"And if he loses the signal?"

Sarah saw how he clenched and unclenched his left fist, one, two, three times, almost spasmodically. That was another consequence of the Intersect. She never told anybody, but she was terrified about the possibility that Chuck could be suffering brain damage. Sometimes she had nightmares about it.

"Chuck, if Casey loses the signal what?" she asked again, trying to suppress the tremor in her voice.

"He has instructions to enter if he doesn't hear from us in fifteen minutes," he answered with a dispassionate tone that made her hair stand on end.

"Can you make it ten minutes, Casey?"

"_Feeling__ incompetent, Walker?"_

"No, I'm being just cautious."

Casey sneered. _"Suuure. Let's leave it in ten minutes, then."_

Sarah rolled her eyes and resumed walking arm in arm with Chuck. She made sure of showing a vacuous expression, as the trophy girl she was supposed to be. When they met the arms dealers they treated her accordingly, ignoring her or pinching her butt every time they thought Chuck wasn't looking.

Sometimes she loathed her work.

"So, Mr. Carmichael, are you ready to talk business?" the leader of the gang asked with a strong accent. Sarah knew his name, Arsen Abazov, and his origin, Turkmenistan. Chuck called him _Uncle Bernie 2 from Something-tan_.

"I'm born ready," Chuck said and Sarah felt relieved to hear his silly comeback. He was still his Chuck.

Abazov mustered a half smile half grimace, apparently not very sure of what to do with that answer. Then he guided them inside the warehouse. Sarah made a quick review of the other members of the gang: eight men, all of them taller than 5,9 feet, with arms capable of twisting an iron bar and every of them armed, with at least two guns each one.

A piece of cake.

Once inside, they stopped at a little table in the middle of nothing.

"You could at least hang some colored lights to give some atmosphere," Chuck said with a frivolous gesture that signaled the ceiling.

"When I show you the masterpiece I have for you, you will see fireworks," Abazov answered. Then he snapped his fingers and a henchman behind him produced a metal small case that he put on the table.

"I'm not very fond of fireworks, actually. It has something to do with them being explosive and me not being made of adamanti—ahhh!" Sarah clutched his arm until it hurt. "Anyway… I feel interested in knowing how you got… the merchandise."

Abazov laughed and touched his nose with his index. "That is, if you allow me, professional secrecy."

"Ah-hahaha… You old cunning man…" Sarah kicked his ankle. "But really, I want to know. I would pay a generous fee for that information."

"Why, Mr. Carmichael, aren't you satisfied with our treatment to you?"

"No, no, please, you're charming. It's just that… this is not the only country where I operate, and it would be perfect if your suppliers worked abroad too. A bigger deal would be mutually advantageous for both sides."

Abazov cracked a chilling smile. Sarah had a bad feeling about this. She could sense four henchmen behind her.

"Let's not talk about future deals when you haven't closed this one," the arms dealer said. "Besides, I don't even know if you will approve this material. Come here and see it by yourself."

He extended an arm as if he wanted to encompass Chuck's shoulders. Chuck threw a quick concealed glance at Sarah. She nodded in a hardly noticeable way. Even if things got ugly, she could manage it.

Besides, Casey was covering their backs. Casey was always covering their backs.

Chuck waddled toward the other side of the table where the lock of the metal small case was.

Abazov patted his back as if he was a drunk uncle in his wedding, then he opened the case with the gesticulations of a conjurer.

There was silence.

Chuck blinked and put exactly the same face he had showed when he discovered that Sarah's Christmas present for him had been a miserable gift voucher.

"Uh… Dude, this case is empty."

One of the henchmen pounced on Chuck. It was just a second. Not even that, it was a fraction of a second, but Sarah made a mistake. She moved towards the asset.

When she should have protected herself.

She felt the full impact of 210 lbs of pure muscle charging against her back and her upper body smashed into the table. All the air left her lungs. Before she could react somebody grabbed her left arm and twisted the other backward. Another person took her gun out of the hidden holster on her tight. He also took the opportunity to briefly rub two fingers against her crotch.

She was going to kill all of them.

Abazov received her gun. "Ah, a _Smith & Wesson Model 5906_, an interesting choice, Miss Wolf. Or it would be more appropriate to call you agent Walker."

Chuck and Sarah glanced at each other. Alarm was evident in his brown eyes.

"We don't know what you're talking about," Chuck stammered. He had been handcuffed to one leg of the table. A henchman was aiming at his head.

"You don't remember your own job for the CIA, agent Carmichael? What a fussy memory you have."

"I guarantee you I'm _not_ an agent."

Sarah would swear she heard frustration in his voice.

"Look, agent Carmichael, we have been informed about your identity by very reliable sources, sources that asked me to capture you, special agent Charles Carmichael from the CIA. And the beautiful pussycat we have here is agent Sarah Walker. Gorgeous, isn't she?" He put her own gun against her temple. "I wonder if she would be as beautiful with her brains scattered over her blonde hair."

_Oh, nononono… Don't threaten me, not in front of Chuck…_

"What do you say, Mr. Carmichael? Do I pull the trigger or will you be a good boy?"

_Stop, stop it!_

It happened then, the clear sign of a flash on Chuck's face: that mix halfway through an upcoming sneeze and an orgasm. His bearing changed at the same time, he went from a nerd of hunched shoulders to a winner of raised chin.

Special Agent Charles Carmichael in the flesh. And Charles Carmichael didn't shrink in front of the danger, he smiled.

"You are a bold man, Abazov, threatening us like that. What makes you believe that my team won't break in throwing white phosphorus grenades at your heads?"

Abazov snorted. "Because we have jammed your communications. Thank you, by the way, for giving us a signal we could track. My men should have found out your backup by now."

Sarah looked at Chuck straight at the face. Carmichael or not, she was an expert deciphering facial expressions. He nodded and extended a finger over the table.

_One._

Abazov cocked the gun.

_Two._

"Well, Mr. Carmichael?"

_Three! _

As Chuck leaned on the table to boot the henchman aiming him with a spectacular pirouette, Sarah turned over her back, taking the henchman that was holding her with her. She used the impulse to kick the man next to him. The metal heel emitted a loud crack when it hit his skull. Before the henchman still grabbing her arm recovered, she used him as a shield for the other two henchmen that began to shoot.

Abazov was crawling away. Unfortunately she had no time for him. Chuck had covered under the table and was throwing the knifes she always told him to carry in the socks. With astounding aim.

Sarah took two sharp pins of her hair and stuck each one of them in the eye of each henchman. When she turned round, she realized that Chuck had gotten rid of the rest.

_There is only__ left…_

Abazov had moved away to a secure place and now raised his hand to aim.

Sarah used her last pin to disarm him, then she grabbed the nearest gun on the ground.

"Stop! There is a bomb hidden in the small case and if you get any closer, I will explode it," Abazov said as he raised his hand. He was holding what looked like a remote control.

"It's a bluff," Chuck hissed. No, not Chuck. Charles Carmichael.

"Are you going to bet your life on that?" Abazov asked, a vicious smile on his lips.

Sarah — half bent, the cannon pointing at the floor — watched Abazov retreating, backward, step by step. She felt her blood roaring in her ears and her heart hammering in her chest, consequence of the adrenaline punch and the more than tangible fear. She knew Abazov was going to push the button and detonate the bomb as soon as he was out of their reach. She could see it in the glint of his eyes.

She was confident that Casey could take care of himself and would eliminate the men that went to target him. But she wasn't sure he could make it in time to stop Abazov.

"Blow his brains out, Walker," Chuck whispered.

Sarah clasped the handle of her gun.

"I wouldn't do it if I were you, agent Walker," Abazov warned. "I will hit the button before you can aim."

He was close to the exit door. Sarah was going to run out of time. She would have only seconds once he put a foot on the threshold.

Abazov went away little by little. He extended the hand that wasn't holding the remote backward to make contact with the door. Sarah took the precise measures out of the corner of her eye.

Abazov opened the door. Sarah got ready.

"Greetings from The Ring," he said.

Sarah saw his smirk before he disappeared. She turned round right away and broke the chain of Chuck's handcuffs with one shoot. She instantly heard the frenetic beeps coming from the small case.

He looked at her then. Not with the kind gaze and soft smile of Chuck Bartowski, but with the hard glare and sneering grimace of Charles Carmichael.

He grabbed the case, took impulse and hurled it as far as he could. Next he jumped towards her in a feline leap and pushed her forwards. Sarah felt the painful impact against the rough floor.

And then her world exploded.

* * *

She didn't remember much more after that.

When she had recovered her senses Casey had informed her about her lose of control. Of how he had to physically restrain her when the paramedics where trying to rescue Chuck and her and how they had to sedate her after she was free.

The only thing she could remember was the blood in her hands. The blood on the floor. The blood flowing from Chuck's head under the rubble.

Traumatic brain injury, the doctor had said.

Ellie had put a brave face and had explained her how good the treatments were in these times. Devon had joined her, labeling them as "awesome."

Traumatic brain injury, the doctor had said.

Casey had acted as the best neighbor ever and he had brought drinks and food for everybody as they had waited for more news.

Traumatic brain injury, the doctor had said.

Nurses had run up and down the corridor. But nobody came to talk to them. And the minutes became hours that looked like an entire life. Chuck's life.

Failure of the mission, General Beckman had said.

The worst part was that she was right. Sarah knew she was right. And everything was her fault. She sucked as a spy. They had been about to lose the Intersect.

She had been about to lose Chuck.

Not that "in coma" sounded better. Ellie had assured her that the head injury had been less serious than what they had thought in the first time, that the prognosis was good and that the doctors expected a quick recovery. In two days they would make another diagnosis.

It was the third day.

Chuck's condition was unchanged but stable. That apparently was good news.

"It's good news," Ellie said as if she had read her mind.

They were sitting down in Chuck's room. She took Sarah's hand and clenched it to cheer her up.

That worsened the situation, of course. Ellie and the rest thought that Chuck had suffered a car accident and that Sarah was just a worried girlfriend. So much compassion and support made her retch. Only Devon knew the truth, but his usual _exuberance_ was of no help.

"Sarah, you should go home. You need to rest."

"No, I'm fine."

"You have injuries of your own and you haven't slept in three days."

"I can manage…"

"No, you can't." She smiled at her, a fleeting and sweet beam. Sarah felt like crying. "Even Morgan has taken a break from the watch. And we're talking of Morgan, Chuck's Life Partner."

_Morgan's official duty isn't to protect Chuck, as much as he thinks it is__. He isn't Chuck's damn handler._

"Sarah, this isn't your fault," Ellie said, her stare was both intent and sympathetic.

Her reasonable tone got on Sarah's nerves. "Of course it is. I'm—" She bit her tongue before telling anything compromising. "I was the one driving the damn car!"

Ellie took a look at her comatose brother as if she hoped that the yell could wake him. It didn't. "A truck driver lost control and hit you. You couldn't do anything."

The stupid version the Agency had made up for her burnt like acid. She couldn't do it, she couldn't play the "good girlfriend" part all the time. It was exhausting.

"Ellie, just… Leave me alone, OK? I need to be alone."

"Then go home."

"No. I need to be alone _here_." She made an emphatic gesture with her hands. "I need to do this." She realized that she wasn't convincing Ellie. Time for a change of tactic "Look, if I go home… Everything reminds me of Chuck there."

Ellie softened her face to the point of being in the verge of tears. "Oh, Sarah… Sweetie, I'm sorry… I didn't get it."

Well, something good had to come from her cover of living with Chuck. Besides, the shameful truth was that… her explanation wasn't actually so far from the truth.

"You can come to our place," Ellie suggested.

Sarah frowned. Ellie Bartowski's "search and destroy" tactics had nothing to envy to the ones from the CIA agents. She was extremely persistent.

"I don't want to be a burden," Sarah counterattacked.

"Sweetie, you're never a—"

"Please, Ellie, leave me here. _Please_. I don't want to argue anymore."

Ellie recoiled. "Are you sure this is what you want to do?"

No. What she wanted to do was to find out the whereabouts of Abazov, hunt him down and beat the hell out of him. Or if this option was unavailable, she wanted to hit her punching bag until her knuckles cracked.

But her wishes were irrelevant.

"I must do this," Sarah said out loud.

Ellie nodded, rather sadly, and got up from her chair. She went past Sarah, then stopped and put a hand on her unofficial sister-in-law's shoulder. "Love isn't a duty."

Sarah clenched teeth and fists in a reflex, but said nothing.

Ellie resumed walking and left her in the room.

Alone.

* * *

Sarah had always had a dreamless and light sleep, even when she was a child. Adulthood only made her keep a knife under her pillow. So the first thing she did when a muffled sound woke her was take her hand under her head. The hand just kept moving ahead until her entire arm was extended, still without grasping anything. The excruciating pain Sarah felt when she jerked her head reminded her that she was in a chair, in Chuck's room, in the hospital.

She saw a stranger in the dim light near Chuck's bed.

Sarah sprang from her seat and the leather jacket that was scarcely covering her fell to the ground. The bunch of keys in its pocket sounded like a stroke when they hit the floor.

_So much for a__ stealthy approach._

The stranger — who actually was a nurse — over Chuck's bed raised a very rigid index to ask for silence. She was bent towards Chuck, with her ear close to his mouth as if she was trying to hear something.

"What is it? Mr. Bartowski, can you hear me?" she was saying.

Sarah approached them with an unpleasant tightness compressing her ribs. She hated hoping in vain, even if a part of her was just dying for that hope to be real. "Is he… awake?" she asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

The nurse grimaced. "I'm not sure. I was in my round when I heard a voice coming form here."

Sarah blinked and felt her heart sinking. The nurse had to be wrong, of course. If she — a trained spy — didn't hear anything, obviously that stranger couldn't—

"Mission accomplished?" Chuck asked suddenly. His voice was soft and cracked, but it was _his voice_.

Sarah darted toward the bed and almost broke her left leg when she hit the spring mattress. "Chuck, Chuck! Can you hear me? Are you all right?"

"Don't… shout… Walker…" His eyes fluttered and opened for a second.

"Just calm down," the nurse said, an arm extended to her as if she was trying to physically restrain her. "Mr. Bartowski?"

"Who?" he asked.

Sarah made a titanic effort to control her anxiety. "Chuck, how are you?"

"Dark… Raspy…"

"Do you need something?" No answer. "Chuck?" He laid on the bed, still. "Chuck, can you hear me? Chuck!" She shook his chest.

"Don't move him!" the nurse warned.

"Sorry." Sarah moved her hands back as if he burnt. She waited in restless calm as the nurse did a quick check. "Is he all right?"

"Yes, but I'm going to call the doctor right now."

"Will he wake up again?"

"Yes. It's perfectly normal for comatose patients to regain consciousness just for a few minutes."

"It's being like seconds," Sarah quipped.

The nurse just smiled. "He just talked with you for seconds, but probably he's been awake a little longer."

Sarah took that answer as a personal insult and she brooded in a corner all the time the doctor spent in the room checking up on Chuck. Knowing Chuck's status and when he needed her was her _duty_. She was a top spy, la _crème de la crème_, chosen when she was seventeen by Graham himself. A slip like that was _intolerable_. What was happening with her? She was like brainwashed. Or worse, she was in love.

To wipe out her own misery Sarah called Ellie. Her squeal through the receiver almost melted Sarah's ear.

* * *

Ellie got out from Chuck's room with her head down. She wiped away a tear coming from her usually bright eyes, now opaque. Devon walked right behind her and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Ellie noticed Sarah looking at her and she looked back. Her eyes filled with tears again. "Chuck doesn't recognize me." Her voice cracked at the last word.

Sarah couldn't understand it. When she left everything looked all right.

Granted, she went home when Chuck didn't completely recover his consciousness, but she thought that once his coma period was over the biggest of their problems had ended.

In fact, she had slept more profoundly than she had in a long, long time. On a made bed, wearing her clothes and shoes and the keys of home in one hand.

Going back to the hospital and meeting the doctor talking with a desolate Ellie as the rest stared behind her back with somber faces as if they were a Greek chorus, had been a shock to her.

Something was wrong with Chuck. He seemed more confused than what was expected. More than confused, the doctor had said something about amnesia and post-traumatic stress. They had called the Psychiatry unit.

Sarah had stayed aside, in a corner, twiddling with her hands. While Chuck's family and his friends where there she was out of place. She had nothing to offer.

Even if her innards felt as if they were about to collapse of pure worry.

Ellie recovered her composure after the last vain visit to her brother. She approached Sarah with her usual warmness and affection, something that the blonde spy disliked as much as she loved it.

"Sarah, go inside."

"No, no…" She had fought against men twice her size, but saying "no" to Ellie was the hardest thing she had never had to do.

"I think you should. Chuck asked for you."

"He did?"

She was so astonished that it took a second longer than usual to register Ellie's disappointment. Chuck remembered Sarah, but apparently not her.

Sarah felt the guilt twisting her heart. "I'm sure it's just coincidence, probably he said a name and—"

"He asked for Walker. Several times."

Sarah was at a loss for words. The only thing that occurred to her was: "But you're his family."

Ellie mustered a sad smile. "Oh, honey, when are you going to understand that _you are_ part of our family?"

Sarah averted her eyes, flushed. Morgan was looking at her and his face was sympathetic. Devon was staring at her too, but his face was less clear. It looked like suspicion, but less menacing.

"Go," whispered Ellie and slightly pushed her forward.

So Sarah obeyed. She had to protect her cover, after all.

Chuck was on the bed, trying to prevent a doctor from coming close to his bandaged head to examine it. A nurse was talking to him to convince him or, at least, to calm him down.

Sarah announced her presence with a couple of coughs.

When he saw her his face lighted up.

"Walker, you're here! Thank God, I thought I was at the enemy's hands." He crooked a finger at Sarah to drag her near. "Can you just enlighten these people? They're making a mistake and they don't want to admit it."

"Chuck? What happens with you?"

He looked at her, disbelief all over his face.

"Not even you… Why is everybody calling me by that ridiculous nickname?"

"Because it's not a nickname. It's your name. Chuck, Chuck Bartowski."

"Is this some kind of joke? Are you brainwashed?"

Sarah noticed him looking out of the corner of his eye for potential weapons.

"No, why— Chuck, what happens?"

"Don't call me that! Call me by my name."

"And what's your name?"

Sarah had to gather all her willpower to prevent her from crying like Ellie had done when he answered: "Charles, Charles Carmichael."


End file.
